Disclaimer: The opinions
expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author alone, and of
no one else, unless specifically mentioned otherwise.

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For the last week, the
airwaves have been saturated with coverage of the All-India Tennis Association’s
decision to ask Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi to play together as a team to
represent India in the Olympics. It
seems as though, for TV channels in India, the world has stopped but for this
event. What does Leander have to
say? What about Bhupathi? What about Leander and Bhupathi’s dads? What about Lara Dutta? Who will give in? Will they play together? Won’t they?
It’s bordering on the insane.
Seeing all this, you’d think that nothing else of significance in the
world of sports was happening.

Yet, so much is! We in India have so many medal contenders in
the Olympics, which will start in London in just over a month: Deepika Kumari
in Archery, Saina Nehwal in Badminton, Krishna Poonia in discus throw, Vijender
Kumar in boxing, Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang in shooting, Dipika Pallikal
in squash, Vikas Gowda in discus throw, Sushil Kumar in wrestling, Tintu Luka
in 800 m track, and Mary Kom in women’s boxing, to name just a few. Yet how many programs are the country’s TV
channels devoting to even one of them?
A big fat zero. But hour after
hour is devoted to whether Bhupathi will play with Paes or not.

This whole episode
confirms for me why, sports such as tennis, cricket, golf, and football
(soccer in the USA) should NOT be part of the Olympics. Think about it: Tennis has the four grand
slams – Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open, and the US Open, which
millions watch on TV. Their stars get
paid millions just to participate in tournaments. Golf, too, has its majors, the British Open,
the US Open, the Masters, and the PGA Championship, which have millions of
dollars in prize money and billions in TV sponsorships. Football has the World Cup, the UEFA Cup, the
English Premiership, the Champions Trophy, and many other money-minting
machines. And, of cricket, the less said the better.

So these sports get
plenty of exposure; they have lots of people who will spend hours on end
watching them on TV, and there is no dearth of sponsors for them. Their stars are highly paid, both through
salaries and endorsements.

In contrast, who watches
the discus throw or heptathlon except at the Olympics? What other showcase do these events
have? In track and field, except for
someone like Usain Bolt, who is really well-known and watched? In the past there were people like Carl Lewis
and Sebastian Coe; but the names are few and far between. These hard-working athletes are heard of once
in 4 years. Sure, there are
international track and field meets, but let’s be honest: how many of us sit
and watch the TV waiting for the ITF meets?
How much is it even advertised?

The same goes for the
water sports in the Olympics. We never
watch swimming or diving except at the Olympics or similar events such as the
Commonwealth Games or the Asian Games.
You hear of a Michael Phelps or a Matt Biondi or a Greg Louganis or an
Ian Thorpe once in 4 years – and then forget about them for the next 4 years.

Or think of a great pole
vaulter like Sergei Bubka. Or a decathlete legend like Daley Thompson. Or a
gymnast like Nadia Comaneci. And would
we ever have heard of the great Naim Suleymanoglu – the weighlifting champion
at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games who defected from Bulgaria to Turkey to
compete in the Olympics and win his dream gold medal - if it were not for the Olympics?

So it is these people,
who work hard, day and night, for no reward except the dream of participating
in the Olympics, and the hope of getting a medal, who need the Olympics; not
the tennis players who have their grand slams, the golfers who have their
majors, the soccer players who have their World cups, or the cricketers who
have their Ashes or Border-Gavaskar or IPL trophies. Let us not take the glory and the spotlight
away from these athletes, who get their chance to shine once in 4 years.

8 comments:

After reading your article in some detail, I couldn't help but state the obvious:

1. Bhupati should clearly be the one who is selected. His first name alone dictates it.

2. All sports are secondary to Iron Chef and other reality TV shows. No one cares about swimming, diving, or scrubbing ice floors in front of a giant hockey puck.

3. In order to raise viewership of the Olympics, new sports such as "Olympian Idol" and WWF Smackdown should be brought in. After all, kabaddi was played in the berlin olympics in 1936. give other sports a chance.

O-O-O--O-O-O---|= --O-O------O-O----|(WWF, where the Ws are written with the 5-ring olympic symbol)

one more thing: leander's last name sounds like the the present indicative form of a verb denoting a particular bodily function. yet another reason bhupati should be chosen -- his first name is just glorious.

K-man! You've found (one of) your calling(s): blogger extraordinaire. I have always said that if the Olympics is not THE pinnacle of any particular sport, then it should not be part of the games. This litmus test works pretty well. You cite many examples (tennis majors, World Cup). My eyes are still rolling from the thought of golf as an Olympic sport. Why? Because spoiled brats deserve a shot at a gold medal, too, damnit! The prime counter-argument is the marathon. Hard to argue that this event should not be in the games. On the other hand, in the marathon there are basically majors like tennis: London, Berlin, NYC, Boston, Chicago. Well, of course, the only thing that really matters to the money. I leave you with that as fodder for your next rant :-).

Thanks, R-man! I agree with your litmus test, and also agree about the marathon. That's a difficult one because it is so much part of Olympic history - cannot imagine an Olympics without a marathon - yet, it has its majors. Guess you have to make an exception for historical reasons.